Pie Safe & Shelf Makeover

I've made a good start on transforming the kitchen furniture to go with the new wall color.  So far I've painted a pie safe, a mirror, a shelf, a server and a pantry cupboard.  Here is the "before" on the pie safe and shelf:  Ok, not the best picture, I took it at Christmas and was more concerned with what was on top than the pieces themselves.

And here is the "after":

White paint goes much better with the aqua walls than black.  Now I just have to paint the table, chairs, hutch and island.  I'm still torn about the cherry cabinets but I'm not planning to paint them.  For now.

Linking up to What's It Wednesday.

Change is good, especially the SHINY kind

So, I was whining to my friend Donna (the nice one who gave me furniture) about how my gold chalkboard doesn't look good against my newly painted dining room walls.  Sure, I could move it, but I don't have another good spot for it and I really like it where it is (can you hear the whine) so I guess I have to paint it white, but I kind of don't want to because soon everything will be white.  Donna says, 'Why don't you paint it silver?'  That Donna is a GENIUS!

LOVE IT!  Here is the rest of the dining room mostly put back together:

I also painted my kitchen the same color, and I HATE how all my kitchen furniture looks with the paint.  Guess what's next on my project list?  Be careful what you paint.... it's a slippery slope.

Linking up to Show & Tell Friday.

Magnolia Bakery Blue

I was so taken with the interior of the Magnolia Bakery in Los Angeles that I determined to use a similar aqua paint hue in my house. I decided on a whim yesterday to get samples, and after some trial and error, settled on a color that seemed like "the one". My daughter Amanda has been ready for anything but white in our kitchen/dining room since we moved in, so she was eager to help.  We spent our Super Sunday moving furniture and painting the dining area. I didn't get the room back together during daylight, but I took a quick snap once some pieces were moved back in and before I lost the all the light. The color is not quite true in the photo here and I had to add a lot of light during editing, which changed it a bit, but it's fairly close:

And here is my inspiration color. I think I got pretty close to this, hopefully at some point I'll have the right light to photo it. We used Behr "Tide Pools". It only took one coat of the paint/primer in one. The room is not all that big but I did use most of a can on it. I ran out of energy as well as paint, so the kitchen area will wait for another day.

The other really inspiring thing about the Magnolia Bakery is the banana pudding, which is TO DIE FOR. I put both their cookbooks on my Amazon wishlist but was able to find the recipe online and Amanda made it for us:

Not that you can really go wrong with 3 cups of heavy cream, but this is phenomenal. Hope you all had a great weekend!